THE NATIONS: Quarter to Eleven

Molotov said "an Anglo-American bloc"
was waging "an offensive against the Soviet Union." Peter Orlov,
commentator for Radio Moscow, told the Russian people that "American
reactionaries are trying to ... [build] up an Anglo-American military
bloc . . . for a third World War."

Britons and Americans knew the Russian charges were untrue; but they
also sensed last week that the Byrnes-Molotov "debate" (more accurately
described as a duet of denunciation) on the Paris conference had put
Russia and the West further apart than ever. How serious was the
cleavage?

Byrnes's denial of the bloc's existence was true, in the sense that...